Stay Organized With Our Favorite EDC Planners for 2024

At this moment, there’s a good chance that this is just one of a dozen browser tabs you have open along with your email client, maybe a budgeting spreadsheet, and probably your social media manager. You’re also likely to be getting texts periodically, and receiving alerts from your calendar. It’s overwhelming, and the truth is that human beings have a saturation point when it comes to technology. Too much and we become inured to it, practically ignoring it. This is why, rather than another screen to keep yourself organized, you should consider a paper planner. When you’re ready to go low-tech, our guide to the best EDC planners for this year will save you from the machines.

Why Should You Use a Paper Planner?

The idea might seem archaic, but scientifically speaking, it has been shown that writing something by hand stimulates your brain in a totally different way than texting or typing. You have to think more and work harder, making it much more likely that you’re going to remember it. In addition to helping your memory, with a planner, you have a schedule that won’t run out of batteries or shatter when it hits the pavement, making it the best for the tough world of everyday carry. 

What to Look For

Size: Even though planners are usually pretty easy to lug around, this is an EDC guide, so we’ve made sure to include the measurements of each pick. But everyone’s loadout is different, and if you don’t have much space to work with, then go for something like a pocket planner.

Time: Planners range from daily to yearly, and each option provides something different. These differences are primarily found in the space allocated to each day on the pages, with daily planners using a whole page for one day (making it convenient for those with packed schedules). Weekly planners offer up to a handful of pages each week, and monthly/yearly planners are great for big-picture planning and general organization.

Material: If you’re looking for longevitiy and value the look and feel of a notebook, you may want to go for a hardcover (or leather) option. On the other hand, some just want a quick and light way to stay organized, and a softcover notebook can be more in line with that.

Word Note Books 2024 Standard Memorandum

Best Starter Planner: Around the 1900s, this was everyone’s smartphone, calendar, data planner, and notepad. It’s cut slim for fitting into your back pocket and being taken everywhere. This slender frame increases portability, but it won’t allow you to write more than a couple of lines per day, and even those are going to be crowded. Good for those who can take concise notes or anyone who uses a larger supplementary planner, it’s also handy for chronicling your life or basic journaling on the go. Choose from their selection of leather covers if you plan on sticking with this for the future, if you work and play especially hard, or if you just want a better look to the already minimalist design.

Field Notes 56-Week Planner

Best Planner Overall: Field Notes always produces quality materials with a no-nonsense methodology. Previously they released an “Ambition” set of notebooks that included a weekly planner. This is that planner pumped up and ready to stand on its own. It uses a dual-ring design to help it lay flat and not spring up or catch like standard spiral binders. At 4.75 by 7.5 inches in size, it’s a little bigger than normal, but that space is used to increase the writing area so that you can add more information. Meant to survive in a shop environment, this can take a beating and keep coming back.

Leuchtturm1917 Weekly Planner

Best Weekly Planner:  Many of the EDC planners we found increased their girth to give people more room to write all their thoughts and feelings, or perhaps do sketches of unicorns. Not the organized people at Leuchtturm1917. They have project grids for planning timelines, lots of little boxes for appointments, and we’ve counted a half-dozen ways in which they’ve found new strategies for recording all the things you need to get done. You can get a 3-year overview, just in case a 5-year plan wasn’t specific enough, and for note-taking there’s detachable pages that let you put down your daydreams while not interfering with your hard-and-fast plans for the future.

Moleskine 2024 Weekly Planner

Best Softcover Planner: About the size of your standard tablet, Moleskine has perfected the simple art of the notebook planner. On the left hand side of each page is a snapshot of the week with a full ruled page on the right for all your notions and notations. There’s a monthly calendar for long-term planning, and everything strives to offer both a fast-and-dirty way of scheduling and scribbling things down, as well as an extended format for those who have a lot going on, or who tend to make meticulous notes. A classy strap holds the notebook closed, a fabric marker keeps track of your day, and in the cover is a little document pocket that’s oddly the perfect size for a second, smaller planner or notebook.

mochithings 2024 The Planner M

Best Versatile Planner: This minamalist planner comes in four pastel colors, and features pages for both monthly and weekly planning. The weekly planning section is composed of a column-style layout, with a note section at the bottom for any extra thoughts (or pictures). The monthly and weekly pages alternate each month, too, so it gives you more planning options. On top of that, the planner also comes with convenient storage options via pockets and a pen holder, along with two ribbon bookmarks.

Monk Manual 90-Day Planner

Best Monthly Planner: For those that want a nice middle ground between a weekly and a monthly planner, this pick is for you. It covers 90 days, and in addition to the traditonal planning options, it also features personal monthly check-ins and reflections, so it doubles as a journal as well. The notebook is made with a vegan leather cover, and comes with 240 pages of acid free paper with soy-based ink, making this a sustainable pick to boot.

Hobonichi Techo Planner A6

Best Daily Planner: Japan has a reputation for efficiency, and the Hobonichi shows exactly how they do it. It’s got everything you could possibly want in a planner: Good looks, lots of space, a grid for your own personalization, places for notes, places for appointments, and the capacity to personalize. Each page bears a full day on it, so if you’re a heavy note-taker, this will save your life and prevent your poor hands from needing to crunch down and write in a small space. It lays flat for easy writing on both sides, and can still fit into large pockets or bags without sucking up space.

Rite in the Rain Complete Planner Kit

Best Kit: Just because you’re not at home or in the office doesn’t mean that things aren’t still happening. Anyone who spends a portion of their time in the wild – be they natural scientist, hunter, outdoor nudist colony event planner, or just a person who camps – needs a solid planner for their ideas, but also a way to protect it from the elements. That’s where this planner cover from Rite in the Rain comes in. They rewrote the book on tough notebooks, and this is no exception. Able to handle extreme temperatures, wind, water, and everything else nature throws at you, if your life requires a tactical pen, get it a tactical planner to go with it.

The Best EDC Accessories You Can Get

If you’re interested in adding more to your loadout, our guide to the best EDC accessories has you covered.